None of your grave airs, my dear. The man is a good sort of man, and
will be so, if you and Lady L---- don't spoil him. I have a vast deal of
roguery, but no ill-nature, in my heart. There is luxury in jesting with
a solemn man, who wants to assume airs of privilege, and thinks he has a
right to be impertinent. I'll tell you how I will manage--I believe I
shall often try his patience, and when I am conscious that I have gone
too far, I will be patient if he is angry with me; so we shall be quits.
Then I'll begin again: he will resent: and if I find his aspect very
solemn--Come, come, no glouting, friend, I will say, and perhaps smile in
his face: I'll play you a tune, or sing you a song--Which, which! Speak
in a moment, or the humour will be off.
If he was ready to cry before, he will laugh then, though against his
will: and as he admires my finger, and my voice, shall we not be
instantly friends?
It signified nothing to rave at her: she will have her way. Poor Lord
G----! At my first knowledge of her, I thought her very lively; but
imagined not that she was indiscreetly so.
Lord G----'s fondness for his saucy bride was, as I have reason to
believe, his fault: I dared not to ask for particulars of their quarrel:
and if I had, and found it so, could not, with such a rallying creature,
have entered into his defence, or censured her.
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